Effects of classical music as part of environmental enrichment in captive Mus musculus (Rodentia: Muridae)

Abstract

In the wild, animals are exposed to an ever-changing array of sensory stimuli. The captive environment, by contrast, is generally much more impoverished in terms of the cues it offers the animals housed within. In a bid to remedy this, and promote better welfare, mice (Mus musculus) were exposed to two conditions: no auditory stimulation, and stimulation with classical music. In all experiments, a battery of behavior tests was used. The results demonstrated significantly decreased immobility in the forced swim, increased enclosed arm entries in the plus-maze, and decreased immobility in the open-field, in animals that had been pre-exposed to music 24h earlier, suggesting that changes in mouse motor activity were caused by classical music. This study led to the conclusion that environmental enrichment may have profound effects on the behavior of mice in behavioral tests, and that classical music can be a relatively simple method of contributing to the well-being of captive mice, but it can affect the results of experiments such as forced swimming.

Keywords

• environment enrichment
• forced swim
• mice
• open field
• plus maze